Everything you always wanted to know about swingers.

The Occupy Wall Street movement captured public attention while speaking for the so-called 99 percent, but those who actively participated were drawn from a much narrower, more elite slice of American society, according to a new survey.

Those who described themselves as “actively involved” in the Occupy movement were overwhelmingly white, highly educated and employed, according to a new report from the Joseph F. Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies at the City University of New York.

“When people are saying, ‘Occupy Wall Street is a white, middle-class thing,’ I can’t really fight them because it’s not true, but then, it’s not necessarily false either,” Michele Crentsil, a 23-year-old African-American Occupy participant said in the report.

The report surveyed the participants at a joint Occupy-labor movement May Day rally in New York City and found that two-thirds of those who described themselves as “actively involved” in Occupy Wall Street were white, while 80 percent had a bachelor’s degree or higher.

Those demographics aren’t representative of New York City as a whole. Only one-third of New York City residents are white, according to the report, and about 34 percent have a bachelor’s degree or higher.

“It confirmed our sense that the people who were doing the occupations were doing it out of self-interest as much as out of a kind of general political awareness,” Penny Lewis, an assistant professor at the Murphy Institute and co-author of the report, told The Huffington Post.

Many of these activists claiming to represent the 99 percent were drawn to the Occupy movement after the financial crisis left them underemployed and burdened with student loan debt. The survey found that while 80 percent of respondents said they had a job, about one-third said their employment was “precarious,” Lewis said. More than half of respondents under 30 were carrying over $1,000 in student debt, the report found.

“People who are entering the middle class or coming out of the middle class, and looking to college to put themselves forward, are actually graduating with excessive amounts debt,” Lewis said.

Lewis noted that since the survey was taken at a rally with labor protesters, the sample likely skewed more towards long-term activists and educational professionals than the Occupy gatherings in Zuccotti Park. Still, actively-involved protesters who the researchers interviewed for the report said the perception of Occupy as a largely white, middle-class movement wasn’t entirely wrong.

The group’s demographics also dictated in part the issues on which the movement chose to focus. Only 5.4 percent of actively involved participants said they joined Occupy Wall Street to deal with racism or race-related issues, while 19 percent cited student debt and access to education, according to the report.

Occupy Wall Street’s largely white, highly-educated makeup also affected the way the movement was organized, the report said. The presence of many homeless people in Zuccotti Park and at the movement’s General Assembly (GA) gatherings presented “daunting” organizational challenges to the group, the report said. And though the movement had no official leaders, those who represented Occupy Wall Street in the public sphere were often white, male and highly educated, one protester interviewed for the report noted.

“We ended up recreating a lot of racist, sexist, classist structures,” Crentsil wrote in the report. “The people who you would see on TV or as the quote-unquote 'leaders' who are either facilitating the GA or being front and center in any other way shape or form were often white, male and highly educated.”

I know what you meant by the second 2, it is very close on my cellphone as well.

I tend to agree. Sadly the republicans which stood for conservative values gave up too much and now their children think that they must give up more. They fell into the sacrofice trap when they gave the house away in hopes that the boss would turn things around.

Instead the boss sold the company and fled to Mexico or porto Rico.

Hazle Township PA

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Robert...there are 3 kind of Republicans, and they number is this order 1.The Manipulated 2. those who actually stand for something 2.The Manipulators America could use a LOT more of the 2nd veriety

Rosemont IL

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Party:

Don't you just love how the majority of the college educated republicans here do not back the lower educated republicans until you start talking about taxes... Then it is all don't touch my taxes... Yet they were given tax breaks to make jobs and they lost what? 8 million of them?

These same college educated republicans lead the non-college educated republicans around with bumper stickers and disappear when the college educated democrats enter the battle field...

It reminds me of how kings of old would lead their army onto the battle field against militia and flee the first chance they got when the enemy militia was backed by actual foot soldiers and Calvary.

Hazle Township PA

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Party: So let me get this straight. You were being paid via lunch, a gift certificate and a bus ticket to disrupt a Tea Party Rally. In order to make a Tea Party rally look violent and disruptive. Interrupt the speakers and such. If so, you are correct. Straight out of Saul D. Alinsky's Rules For Radicals. I knew from you very first posts you were one of his students. I just waited for the moment.

No...you got it wrong....I was offered (we never went through with it) lunch, a gift certificate and a bus ticket to disrupt a Democratic Congresswoman's town hall on HCR BY TEA PARTY ORGANIZERS

The Tea party Organizers worked right out of the Alinsky playbook. Repeat questions even after they were answered Shout down the answers Shout down questions from people who supported HCR I would guess 75% of the people there had NO idea of the actually issues involved, they were paid Tea party protestors from Sr centers, bingo halls, Veterans clubs and off the street. Waive a $50 Wal mart gift card in front of a lonely misfit, the semi homeless, or an elderly person after you scare the bejusus of of them by lying telling them Obama will set up death panels to kill you, and there you have tye Tea party base Astroturf with NO frame of reference to actual issues...paid faux protest

Rosemont IL

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Vacp:

1) complaining about illegal immigration isn't only hypicritical it is redundant. You aren't evicting 10-20 million people... Nazi germany couldn't even kill 20 million jews... To say nothing of how it took stalin 20 years to kill 20 plus million of his own people.

You don't have the time to kick them out before their kids become voting citizens... Unless you plan to change the constitution and deny them their citizenship?

2) it isn't the illegals that keep the wages down... Namely for a security company. (we all must pass a background check... I have my paper work from the government stating that such a check was preformed and I was found to be clean)

No, employers simply want to rack in profits, while they can. When the well is dry, they will have the money and retire some place safe from the radical nazi like groups which you and I both won't wan to see... The kinds that really will take the vote away.

So long as competition in the US, is based upon lowering the standard of living if the employee... Our welfare systems will continue to grow and socialism will become accepted.

Want to stop socialism? Want to stop big government? There is only one way and that is to provide the basic social standards of civilized living. Even if that means you must cut into your own profits to buy back the people's loyalty.

This means providing a upward competition of wages, medical and educational benefits. Manufacturing is never going to return to the US on any level which will grow our economy at any significant pace and when your competition (nationally) is beating you without working their people to death with 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 hour work weeks... It is time to look at the system you have for the problem... Not the workers you have.

3)

Hazle Township PA

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Well maybe if we would rid this country of the people that have crossed our boarders we could have more jobs.It would force companies to pay a LIVING wage as we all deserve. As long as we cater to them the companies know they can pay a min. wage and they will work for it. They come from countries that it is normal to live 15 or so to a house. That is why they can live off of min. wage. We were raised in this country to live in small family settings. Also think of the increase in tax income to the federal government. That also would help us lower our debt and be able to provide for OUR PEOPLE that are in need of help.

Berryville VA

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Vacp:

I have no hand outs from the government. As for my income... Its 13k... At full time work. You can't serve two masters so a second job isn't possible as employers will conflict their Scheduals... Typically the second job will do so intentionally as my mothers employer does with my mothers second job.

I work, but the employer pays a wage which doesn't grow the local economy. That makes him a failure as an employer. Why? Because he makes profit, the communit doesn't, I can't pay the nation enough tax for the protection and services I receive.

Do you not see where the failing is? It isn't with those that work, it is with those who fail to do their job and pay a meaningful wage.

If to pay a meaningful wage means that my employer must live with far less, then that is his fault for not advertising and growing the company. His job is to do three things.

1) advertise the company. 2) pay a meaningful wage (which includes medical and upward mobility) so that his full time employees can contribute to society. 3) then and only after he has fullfilled obligations 1 and 2, does he have the right to personal profits.

Raping and pillaging is what war lords and kings do, they destroy, while Civilized people build things up.

Hazle Township PA

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Bobby my income has be over 75k for many years. I did take a hit on my pay for a couple of years when the auto market to a hit but that was very short lived.Not an angry old man here. What is your income per year?? Don't include any income from hand outs from the government.

Berryville VA

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Outdoor:

Vacp is trapped in Stockholm syndrum if being an automotive repair man... He thinks that this is good pay for living in a city... At the median of 40k by the time you are 45, you can't have savings and a family at the same time... The expenses from bills and other related are too high.

As for those self proclaimed self employed or employers... They are either trapped in the mindset to rape and pillage this nation because that is what happened to them, or they simply are bad people who like to rape and pillage their countrymen.

In any event, I have some sympathy for vacp... He suffers from old angry man syndrum... As for the rest... Our nations enemies have more honor and dignity in their pinky fingers than the entire lot of self proclaimed employers/self employed.

At the least our enemies tap us on the shoulder befor sucker punching us... These people calling themselves civilized Americans rape other Americans financially and bitch punch them in the back of the skull while holding this nation by their hair.

Hazle Township PA

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Of course, with the runaway trend to income inequality, those rich mofos have left much less for the rest of us to scrap over. Maybe at one time, one's circle of friends could always come up with enough to bail you out, rebuild your house, pay your medical bills, etc. Not so much these days.

When a person has to take 2 or 3 jobs, there are 2 or 3 other people who may not have any job. Telling everyone to get a job doesn't create more jobs or less unemployment.